This invention relates to an air sterilizing apparatus and a radiant sterilizing apparatus which employs radiant tubes in an enclosed housing arranged to sterilize the air drawn into the housing.
According to a survey reported in a U.S. medical magazine, 5% of the total patients in all U.S. hospitals were the victims of "hospital contracted infection," because these 5% patients caught infections in the hospitals after being admitted in. Consequently, hospital treatment for those 5% patients were unnecessarily prolonged. Statistically, about 50 thousand out of those 5% were estimated to have died of the "hospital contracted infection" every year. As a result, "hospital contracted infection" ranks "sixth" among the ten vital causes of mortality. Hospitals in other areas having inferior facilities than those of the United States, face a more serious problem of said "hospital contracted infection," so that most people are reluctant to go for hospital treatment and hospitalization, particularly for their children whose immune systems are weak. However, hospitals are unable to take remedial measures since every patient in the hospitals is deemed either a virus or a bacteria carrier, readily spreading the virus or bacteria existing in their upper respiratory organ through their breathing, talking, coughing and sneezing, and go as far as infecting even the medical personnel with undermined immunological defenses. In order to improve this situation, a conventional ultraviolet-ray sterilizing apparatus has been produced for use in a public building. However, since ultraviolet radiation is harmful to human body, said ultraviolet-ray sterilizing apparatus cannot be used safely in a hospital building unless all the patients and medical personnel first evacuated from the place to be sterilized, thereby causing a considerable inconvenience, inasmuch as the patients and medical personnel have to stay in their respective places in the hospital building. Thus, radiation from said ultraviolet-ray sterilizing apparatus could inflict a serious injury when exposed to the patients and medical personnel.